Expert’s tip for negotiating: the fast offer settlement

“Just when you think you have one party’s agreement on a price or on terms and conditions, you take your focus off them to walk with the other party and by the time you turn back to the first party their focus is somewhere else or they’ve thought of other things that they want to throw in the mix,” Mr Bright said.

In order to focus a vendor’s attention, Mr Bright suggested to try the fast offer settlement.

“A good strategy that I occasionally use to find out the vendor’s motivation is to submit an offer with a 90-day settlement knowing full well that a typical settlement period is 42 days” he said.

“If the agent comes back with, ‘No, the vendors can’t do a settlement that long, they want to stick to 42 days as per the contract’, this tells me the vendor is probably committed elsewhere or is quite motivated to sell quickly.

“I then know that if I come back with an offer that might be lower than they would have been looking for, but with a quick 28-day settlement, it is far more likely to be accepted.”

By going with a fast offer settlement, Mr Bright said the vendor will tend to focus more on the time frame of the sale and less on the price.

“Often an offer like this can save the vendor money by avoiding a double move or taking on bridging finance,” he said.

“The offer price is then not as important as it initially was, provided it’s enough to allow them to complete the purchase of their next home.”

Mr Bright added real estate agents who are paid at settlement would be more likely to accept a fast settlement offer, giving buyers a further advantage.